Finally!

At each of the  four dentist visits in the past two years Doctor Flynn has told Nicco that he will start losing those baby teeth soon. The x-rays show the adult teeth pushing up, but no wiggling.

Because a handful of preschoolers, lots of kindergartners, and all but one first grader had lost at least one tooth, Nicco has been exposed to several tooth fairy and losing teeth storybooks.

One day he said to me, "I'm tired of being a baby. When am I going to lose these darn teeth?!?"

Last Saturday he bit into a carrot at lunch and his eyes got big and welled up with frightened tears, his face paled, his little chin quivered and he said to me in a shaky squeaky voice tinged with panic, "Mom, mytoothiswigglingbecauseIcrackeditandthatisnotgood. THAT.IS.NOT.GOOD."

I patted his noggin and told him to let me have a look. I wiggled it and told him the crack he heard inside his head was one part carrot, one part root. I drew a diagram of a tooth and explained the process of root deterioration and told him that this is normal. He was comforted.

The next day, he was eating cake and told me thanks for the red frosting. I told him it was probably blood, not frosting. I didn't put any frosting on the cake. He ran to the bathroom to look in the mirror and had a small freak-out about the blood. In the same squeaky panicky voice, he asked me "Is this normal?" to which I responded yes. Sigh of relief.

The four days following the initial crack were highlighted roughly every 30 minutes with the question, "Is it ready yet?" No matter how many times I told him he'll know when it's ready and it could take a few days, he just kept asking.

This morning I asked him how his tooth is doing. He let me wiggle it. I got a big smile. He asked, "Is it ready?" I said, "Yes! Are you?" He nodded. I got a little piece of paper towel and told him it might hurt a teeny little bit. He giggled and bounced and said, "DO IT!"

I pulled, he put his tongue in the hole in his head and said, "That was it? Are you kidding me? That didn't hurt a bit!" Then he ran to show his Dad.

He finally gets to join all his other classmates on the "Lost a Tooth" chart at school. Perfect timing too, he's the Special Person of the Week this week.

I haven't seen smiles like this since Christmas!